


A city full of demons

by Darke_Eco_Freak



Category: Jak and Daxter
Genre: Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials, Gen, the Jak/Torn is slight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 17:15:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5751550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darke_Eco_Freak/pseuds/Darke_Eco_Freak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I mean daemons. The physical representation of souls, some fit, some are completely off but everyone has one. Everyone. Even the city's resident demon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A city full of demons

**Author's Note:**

> I realised Jak and Dax didn't have a His Dark Materials AU, decided to fix that. I used mainly the animals mentioned in the game itself except for Samos'.

Sages and scientists alike had always been fascinated with daemons, why only humans had them as opposed to other self-aware and intelligent creatures, like Lurkers. And then, why did some people’s daemons settle as something so contradicting to their nature or environment while others’ had daemons who truly represented their inner soul?

Samos had always been more curious than most, always testing limits and erring on the side of danger. Twee was always warning him against going too far, against severing their own connection in one of his many experiments but he was confident he could never hurt his own daemon. And then he met Jak and Daxter, one a seventeen year old whose daemon went against all they knew of daemons, the other an animal with an animal daemon of his own. Jak and Daxter, they were a walking pair of anomalies and it was a wonder the guards hadn’t snatched them both yet.

“And what happens when you become a Sage?” Twee whispered as they made their way to the forest, a Sage, he was going to become the _Green Eco Sage_. The one and only dream he’d ever dared to have as a young boy growing up in the Slums of Haven, a dream he’d created from cobbled together stories and accounts of Eco sages passed down through the ages.

“You know the stories as well as I do Twee,” Samos murmured, climbing down the rock face carefully and never taking his eyes off the wide expanse of greenery. He knew better than most how misleading safety outside of the walls could be, even inside the walls one always had to be on guard against the guard themselves or criminals. At least inside there was hope for survival, humans rarely fighting to the death over petty possessions, while Metal Heads were far more likely to rip you apart and feast on the remains.

“But tell me again, I like to hear about it,” Twee sighed, flittering around his head and chasing butterflies a short distance before returning. His daemon had settled as a blue and yellow niltava in their tenth year, after mother and father had been dragged away by the guards for aiding the rebellion movements. Twee was his freedom embodied, a tiny, colourful bird who belonged to none and could not be captured.

“Very well. Green Eco Sages in particular have the strongest connection to the earth and all living things. They are said to be wise, humble people whose knowledge is boundless and hearts are always open. When we become the next Sage, we’ll be able to save the entire city from Praxis’ tyranny and avenge mother and father,” Samos explained as he crossed the gently flowing brook. And in that moment he truly believed his words, could almost feel the power of life using him as a conduit from the planet into its people.

But then the moment was swallowed up by another, a desperate grab for the power of green eco while under attack, protected by a child who’d had his very soul warped and twisted into something unnatural. Samos had to be greedy, he had to be fast otherwise all would be lost and it was far more preferable that only one be taken as opposed to a whole city full of daemons and dreams and hopes and aspirations and fears and love and **_life_**.

The pain was indescribable, worse than any blaster shot, or fire licking at his skin, or even having the oxygen dragged out of his blood. There was nothing he could compare this soul rending ache to, nothing physical could compare to this tearing apart and breaking of his very self.

And so Samos became the Green Eco Sage through a trial of the deepest pains and Twee became his...

“I’m sorry Twee, I couldn’t, there was no way I could,” words failed him as his once daemon flittered about his head. Twee chirped and hopped and tilted her head but she couldn’t speak, she could barely understand who or what she was, what she’d been. Samos had ripped himself from her, had taken what she carried and soldered it to himself, Twee was little more than a shell now. She was less than a mindless animal, she was less than a stone, Twee was dead and he’d been left an automaton of her body.

Sometimes the old stories ended more tragically than any would ever think and being a Sage was a greater burden than saving a city. Samos had played his hand and he had failed, he had damned himself and sent off another to save the city. God speed to them.

* * *

 

Tess should listen to her soul more often, he usually had some damn good advice.

“Do I get to say ‘I told you so’ or would that be too much of an asshole move?” Ronst asked, cleaning his paws while Tess barricaded them in the Hip Hog using broken booths and a shovel she’d found in the back. She glared over her shoulder at her scarlet muse and deliberately ignored him while continuing to search the bar for things to use as weapons. So far she had a hoe, again in the back, and a metal pipe.

“But I’m an asshole anyway. I told you to stash guns around this shit hole but who didn’t you listen to?” Ronst goaded her and it took all of her control not to just throw him out the smashed window. It wasn’t like he’d die out there, get scared as fuck and refuse to speak to her for a few months but he wouldn’t die, Muses were tough little shits.

“You gonna keep talking or you gonna help me get the eco charges?” she snapped, hefting the hoe then the pipe. There were flecks of brown at the end of each and she knew they’d hold up against most abuse, they’d been kept for their usefulness anyway and already broken quite a few bones. Ronst grumbled under his breath but went around checking all the trophy heads, batting eco bombs out of their mouths and dropping them down to her. Jinx and Syw had hidden them for her, the last thing he’d been able to do before Krew really started putting him through his paces.

“Did you see Marilla when the boys passed by?” Tess asked quietly when her daemon finally got all the bombs in a neat pile at her feet. If push came to shove, they would take cover behind the bar and start chucking the things at the enemy, the pipe was only a last resort.

“No, did you?” Ronst muttered just as quiet as he wrapped himself around her neck.

“No,” she sighed, carding her fingers through the soft fur of her daemon, the ruby red shine distracting her from the bleakness of the situation. Ronst curled tighter around her, exuding the natural comfort and tranquillity of the Muse race though it wasn’t as potent as it could be. He was only a daemon after all. Their city was under attack and all their boys were cut off from each other, they couldn’t fall into too much peace but maybe, maybe if Marilla found Jak again, they might be able to. Someday maybe.

* * *

 

Dusk growled low in her throat as her human ducked from cover to cover. The metal heads had penetrated too far into the city to drive them back, the Slums had been overtaken and those who’d been able to had barricaded themselves in their houses. Now Torn was on his way to the palace, they needed to get to Ashelin and Silon. He’d gotten word from Samos that Jak was on his way to the Nest, he was going after the Precursor stone, he was going to fight Kor.

“Down!” Dusk hissed when a grunt snuffled around a body, keeping close to a wall and scenting the air but it hadn’t spotted them. Sometimes Torn resented Dusk’s settling, he never said it out loud and defended her but deep down she knew because she resented her form too sometimes. Still it was useful in situations like this, where she could blend into the crowd without too much suspicion. The grunt stared at her, cocked its head and lunged for the body, dragging it into an easily defensible corner before tearing into it with pleased grunts.

Dusk snarled at it and it backed up a little more but didn’t stop eating, there wasn’t much that could tear a metal from its meal, not even a higher ranking predator. Although in all technicalities, Dusk wasn’t higher ranking, she wasn’t an actual animal and real animals could tell but most would rather run than stick around to check what she was. She slid over to another body and dragged it over to her person, they would use the miasma of death as a cover to get where they needed to go.

“Can you get a beat on Silon?” Torn grunted, diving down into a trench when a flock of bats passed overhead. Dusk went up on her hind legs and roared at the flock which scattered with hisses and shrieks but none dared attack her. She grabbed Torn by the neck of his shirt and launched him at a building, her human grabbed a jutting pipe and swung himself up onto a roof. It was a practised move, just as practised as the dead sprint her human broke into across the rooftops while Dusk tracked him from below.

To any metal interested in him, Torn was already being chased down by a particularly agile rapid gunner with a more advanced launcher than most. Dusk was fast, she’d learnt to be after she’d settled on this form, and she was deadly, she and her human had survived Dead Town for a reason.

“Gang left and jump,” she shrieked, firing off at a cluster of cloakers who were a little too interested in her ‘hunt’. They went screaming down a side alley and Dusk leapt onto a low awning, using it as a vantage point to scope out the situation. She felt the muted exhilaration of the fall, the wind in Torn’s face then the sharp impact as Silon snatched him out of the air and into the hellcat. The metal head daemon squalled, letting her voice be heard across the metal head infested Slums before she climbed higher and leapt again. This time the exhilaration was her own and there was no impact as Ashelin grabbed her around the waist to haul her into the hellcat.

“Jak and Daxter went looking for Marilla,” Silon explained, pressing his face to Dusk’s flank, the one and only show of affection the other daemon was willing to give. Dusk ran her clawed hand along the sleek, furred body and patted Silon’s rump. They were going to get through this, Marilla would come back and maybe she’d get to say all the things she’d always meant to.

“Then let’s go looking for them,” Torn grunted.

* * *

 

When Silon had finally settled during her first year of KG training, her father had been pleased beyond words.

“A form fitting the next ruler of this city. You’ve made me proud Ashelin.”

Those had been his exact words, words she’d cherished and coveted during the long years of neglect and displeasure. The words she’d preened in as her newly settled daemon prowled around the throne room, his grey fur shining darkly in the low light. Silon hadn’t even settled as the smaller lower land Tigorilla, oh no, he’d chosen the largest breed, the mountain Tigorilla with dark grey fur and pure white stripes. His fangs had been sharper than a true animal, his fingers a little too dexterous as he knuckled and stalked.

“A form fitting the next ruler of this city. You’ve made me proud Ashelin.”

Those were the words that came back to her now, as she took charge of the city’s guard and barked orders in her father’s place. He’d threatened to kill her, he’d used her as a bargaining chip against the Underground. He’d tainted her name for her, shaken some deeply rooted beliefs in herself and her cause.

“Swing left,” Silon instructed, crawling out onto to the back burner of the hellcat. Ashelin rolled her eyes but followed his advice, Silon always had been a stubborn son of a bitch, as disobedient to Jumnie as Ashelin had been obedient to her father. Now he was readying himself to leap down into the overrun square, Dusk was going to provide cover fire and Torn would take the controls.

Silon and Ashelin were going to go get her father’s body.  A three hundred pound tigorilla and a five foot ten woman while a rapid gunner metal and the Underground’s statistical leader provided cover fire. Right, not the craziest thing they’d ever done and most certainly not the last by any means. Cover fire got her to the door and Torn ran the hellcat into anything that tried to follow as Silon squeezed through the small door.

The little clearing was deserted when they got there, deserted and wrecked, barrels of dark eco were scattered everywhere and the hull of a gigantic bomb loomed over them like a promise. Her father’s body was spread out across a plank of wood, his lower half crushed under a barrel of eco and his trusty sword buried in the mud. Torn had gotten word from Jak and Daxter, her father had cut one last desperate deal with the Metal Head Leader, trying to drag him into double cross and had gotten double crossed himself.

“He doesn’t deserve it,” Silon muttered, nosing around for the little bit of gold dust, the last piece of Jumnie they’d ever get to see. There was nothing, no dust, not even an impression left in the dirt to show the rhinodon had ever existed. Ashelin stared down at her father’s body, the blank skin, the insignia of the city on his clothes but not his flesh. He hadn’t died for this City, he hadn’t _lived_ for it, he’d lived and died for **_himself_**. And now here they were struggling to clean up his messes, it was the worst kind of realisation, the worst kind of betrayal, more so than Torn telling her how Praxis had blackmailed the Underground with her life.

“Ashelin, he does not deserve it,” Silon growled, prowling around the small space, hackles raising and amber eyes glinting as metal heads screamed. She didn’t look at her daemon, Silon had firm opinions on a lot of topics, he was loyal to very few, he’d never been loyal to Praxis. And she, well, Ashelin had tried to be the dutiful daughter, tried to make her father proud because it was technically making her City proud, right?

“Let’s get back out there, Torn can’t hold the block by himself,” she muttered, turning on her heel and grabbing her daemon by the scruff of his neck. They would leave the body out here, for the metal heads to scavenge, to eat or use as fodder for a small scale nest. She didn’t care anymore, Praxis was right where he deserved to be. In the muck and mud, outside his precious City and laying in the shadow of his last, greatest fuck up weapon.

“Smartest thing you’ve said all your life,” Silon purred, bumping her with his flank as they climbed back up the ramp. Behind them they left her father’s body, the dust of Jumnie. Ahead of them lay a city under siege and a chance at ending a centuries old war.

“Smartest thing I’ve ever done,” she muttered, slinging a leg over her daemon’s body and slotting herself into the dip just below his shoulders. Dusk’s roar was triumphant and blood thirsty as they burst out of the small door, Ashelin shooting cloakers and Silon batting grunts out of his way with heavy, deadly paws. 

* * *

 

“Dax, what if we can’t find Marilla?” Listra whispered as Jak fiddled around with the Gun. The whumpbee buzzed around her person's ears, kneading his head with her little feet before taking wing again. They were in enemy territory and both of their prey animal instincts were screaming at them to get out of there. Listra wanted to find Marilla, the bigger daemon always took care of her, **_would_** always take care of her.

Marilla had carried Listra in her mouth once, in her mouth, and Marilla **_hated_** whumpees, was always wary of getting pricked. Marilla had taken care of Listra for years and years, and Listra had gotten a chance to start repaying her by breaking her out of jail. Time to repay her again by reuniting her with her person.

“Don’t talk like that, we’ll find her,” Daxter muttered, snatching her out of the air and sticking her in the special pouch Keira had made for them all those years ago. The little pouch was durable, strong, protected her during the rough times and made it so she didn’t have to fly around Dax all the time. Granted her person was an animal now too and was usually getting carried around by someone else, it still served its purpose.

“She’s inside, with the kid I think,” Jak told them, his face bright with the same manic hysteria Listra had seen as the blond pelted himself across yawning chasms, as he ripped metal head jaws open with his bare hands. Jak wasn’t the same kid they’d known back in SandOver, the one who used to run away when Listra buzzed a little too close singing ‘I’ll sting you!’. He wasn’t even the same person they’d rescued from prison, he was darker, more dangerous, he was _unbound_.

“We get in, we get the kid, we beat Kor’s ass and we’re the heroes again,” Daxter rattled off as though it would be that easy, as if the world worked that way anymore. Sometimes her person was insufferably optimistic, thinking that because they’d gotten lucky once, they could do it again. Listra buzzed loudly in her carrier, trying to remind him that they weren’t in SandOver, they weren’t on a noble quest to regain his human shape, they weren’t the heroes. Not really.

They were the rebellion, they’d killed people, watched others be killed, they were older and sadder and more tired. Kor had played them, lied to them about who he was, what he was. He had pretended to have a daemon, had committed a soul deep lie, and even as small as she was, Listra wanted to sting him to death. Kor had lied and lied and stolen from them, he’d taken the Kid and then he’d taken Marilla, and it was about time he paid up.

“Stone, Gun, Nest,” Jak muttered, pointing to each individual component and rubbing his ear into Daxter’s hand as her person jumped onto the blond’s shoulder. Even in her pouch Listra could feel the trembling, rubbling vibrations of Jak’s laughter, the almost growling sound that was closer to a feral purr than a laugh. She really hoped Dax was right and they were able Rilla, she didn’t think Jak’s humanity could last much longer without his daemon. 

“Haha eat this!”

* * *

Marilla was tired, and hungry, oh and pissed off, angrier than he’d felt her in a while. She was cold blooded, serpentine, wrapped around the kid’s ankle with his little crocadog daemon held more securely between her coils. Jak had no idea where exactly she was, somewhere in the Metal Head nest for sure but not where, maybe it should’ve bothered him with how distant he’d grown from his own god damn soul but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

He couldn’t find it in himself to care about a lot of things these days; anything other than revenge and anger and hatred was too much effort. Praxis was dead and Kor had betrayed them, Erol was dead and Torn was a traitor, Krew was dead and Ashelin had sold out her father. Shit was hitting the fan like nobody’s business and Jak had taken Daxter with him, deep into Metal Head territory to retrieve Haven’s heir.

Why was he doing it? Was he doing it for Marilla? For the kid? For the Underground, **_Torn_** , or the city? He didn’t know, it was something to do with anger and a lot to do with vengeance because _Kor_ was the reason he was here in the **_first_** place, but otherwise he didn’t know, he just didn’t know. He was scaring Daxter and Listra, he knew but couldn’t stop himself, not when Kor told him the kid was him and shot them.

Not when he used that anger and that hatred and that weapon Praxis had sewn into his blood to save himself and Daxter and Listra. He didn’t think as he emptied clip after clip of ammo into the scorpions, into Kor, not even when he got stung or hit with even more dark eco. He just fought, powered through, using the demon in his blood when he could, and forgetting about everything but revenge.

Revenge for himself and Daxter and Listra, Keira and Fawn, Samos and Twee, for SandOver, for Vin and Hera, for Sig and his elusive Cami, for the whole Precursors’ damned planet over run by these fucking monsters. Revenge for the soul he was steadily losing. And he won, and he killed Kor, and he got the kid back. The kid, him, he got himself back, was that some kinda weird ass symbolism?

Marilla was feline  _shaped_ as she clawed her way out of the pit Kor had kept him…the kid in, she was jet black, hackles raised and smaller than Silon but not by much. She spat and growled at the Precursor being, she roared at the younger Samos as he took the kid with him into the past, into the better times. She shifted to something vaguely canine, something familiar, something crocadoggish and howled as the kid disappeared into happier times.

“A glorious light.” The Precursor being had said, a glorious light that had done nothing for Marilla, hadn’t given her words, hadn’t even given her colour. And it sure as fuck hadn’t cured the vicious anger gnawing at his insides, oh no, that ‘glorious light’ had killed it entirely. Now there was nothing, blankness, empty and numb.

And here they were, at this stupid celebration where the entire city screamed over the ending of their centuries long war. Marilla was avian, nothing recognisable she never was anymore, she was dark purple and flitted from lighting fixture to lighting fixture, throwing odd shadows wherever she went. Jak could barely feel her anymore, ever since Praxis had severed them, cut the ties between them by pumping them both full of dark eco and dragging them further and further apart each day.

When they’d gone through the rift gate, she’d been a flutterby, she’d had blue and pink and purple splattered across her whisper thin wings. When they’d landed she’d shifted into a flut flut, large and colourful still, had tried to drag him off to safety before the guards could get him, it hadn’t worked. He hadn’t seen her once during the two years captivity, hadn’t been able to see the colour leach away until there was nothing but darkness. Black and midnight purple were her predominant colours, onyx blue and slate grey when she was feeling particularly vicious.

She was just as protective over Daxter and Listra, had screeched at him from her cell when he’d nearly beheaded their friend. She was just as playful as before, she liked to corner Metal Heads as some large thing, vaguely feline, vaguely lupine, and play with them before she took their heads off. She was just as blatant with her emotions as before, choosing to snarl and growl instead of twitter and snicker.

“Jak, we have something we want to ask you,” Dusk whispered, using the new cloaking technology Ashelin had given her. It was easier cloak the lithe rapid gunner, to hide the Metal Head daemon than let people scream when they saw her.

“Marilla too,” Dusk added when he made to follow her to the back alley behind the bar proper. He stared at the daemon, raised an eyebrow at her, she knew that Marilla didn’t listen to him, yet another thing that hadn’t changed, not really.

Still, he held out an arm for her, she was still avian, and she would come if she wanted. Apparently she wanted but not with him, instead she pounced onto Dusk’s cloaked head, forepaws covering the false skull gem. She was some kind of primate, smaller than her normal forms, and a lighter black than usual, if he tried real hard he could almost feel her happiness.

Honestly, he hadn’t expected Torn to be waiting outside the bar with two bottles of Wastelander vodka, and he hadn’t expected Torn to reach for Marilla. He most definitely hadn’t expected his daemon to shift into something small, predator small and nuzzle close to the man's neck before jumping off and dashing down the alley with Dusk in hot pursuit. He couldn’t feel the excitement or the elation from her, from his daemon, but it was easier to read it on Torn’s face.

It was easier to kiss it off him, to steal the joy from the man’s mouth than read his own soul, maybe it should’ve worried him but it didn’t. It got even easier when Torn slammed him against the alley wall, picked him up by the backs of his thighs and kissed him deeper, stole the breath from his fucking lungs.

“You’re something else kid, but I want it all,” Torn growled, planting another open mouthed kiss on his neck, sucking hard on the skin, biting it when he wasn’t satisfied with little pecks. Jak considered it, considered how much he didn’t feel and then what he could, the attraction to this gruff son of a bitch, the man with a metal head soul. He considered the betrayal and he considered the effort put into fixing it.

“I want her too,” Marilla hissed, serpentine again, and speaking for the first time in either of their lives. Her ocean black body was wrapped around Dusk’s neck, tight as a scarf while the rapid gunner metal stroked along the dully glinting scales. Marilla’s voice was rough, scratchy and hard on the ears, it sounded exactly like someone who’d never spoken before.

“Can’t wait to see what the future holds,” he murmured reaching out for Marilla and getting Dusk’s paw instead. Her skin was rough, dry, and entirely distinct from all the other Metal Head’s he’d ripped apart. The rapid gunner smiled at him, blinked her first pair of eyelids once, before shoving her person’s face into his.


End file.
